Duty Session 176: The Tides of Summer

Ripple to flashback.

* * *

About one day earlier. The aftermath of rescuing the Lander "Gabriela Drake" from the cabin in the woods where she was held prisoner. The mission was a success, Gabriela was delivered to someone so she could be taken care of, and Uta, her newbie gear completely drenched in mud, is talking to someone offscreen. Probably someone from the rescue party.

"I healed her...", she says, tired, panting, but showing a smile she's never shown before. "...I diagnosed, treated, and delivered Gabirela from danger. During a mission..." More panting, after what must have been a breakneck scramble. She slides to sit, catches her breath some more, and her smile spreads. "...I know I did that multiple times in camp hospitals... and maybe even something similar during missions, but... for the first time, it felt... I don't know. Like it mattered. Like my being a healer mattered." Camera cut to the point of view of her interlocutor. Uta releases a liberatory laugh, and lets her head fall back, the back of her cranium touching he tree. "For the first time, for the first time since the Apocalypse..." She turns towards the viewer again, and smiles. "...I don't hate this avatar."

* * *

"I hate this avatar!", Uta whimpers as she looks down at the bikini that she's just menu-equipped, all red in the face. She's standing on a beach towel, and it seems like Gwen provided her with everything one needs for the beach. Towel. Bech bag. Swimsuit.

And everything has a slime design to it, of course. Tiny pastel slimes on a white background smile, grin, frowns and aooh like many emoji polkadots.

"...it's a /bikini/. But it's /slimes/. But it's a bikini. But it's /slimes/..."

Yup. Uta's spiraling into dividing by zero.

Goldenblade is on the beach in her new bathing suit. It's a men's bathing suit, and that /sounds/ scandalous, but it's a turn-of-the-previous-century style, so what it is is a knee-length, full-body, long-sleeved suit. With horizontal blue stripes up the length of it. She's getting some exercise at the moment, swimming in the surf, which is a bit harder than swimming in a pool. Waves make ocean swimming much harder, but she's pretty tough.

She was with Uta on that rescue mission, and now she's taking a break, enjoying some leisure time and unwinding. Though for her, unwinding is still pretty active. She eyes the waves, then turns shoreward for a few strokes, then catches the next one in, bodysurfing along the breaker until she's in the shallows, and stands up, smiling, and looks up and down the beach curiously. "This isn't bad," she says to herself.

Foxes are not normally associated with beaches. But a certain one has found herself on this one, taking a moment to enjoy the beauties of the day instead of the night. Estelle is... not actually that far off from Uta, to be honest, laying belly down on a beach towel in the sun. Letting the warm of it seep into her, thanks to the backless one-piece she's obtained from... somewhere.

Ask not the fox where she gets her fashion, and she shall tell you no lies.

Sadly, it isn't up to her usual stellar elegance; there's no twinkling stars amongst the deep blue hues of the piece, just the impression of swirling, deep waters. Her tails are relaxedly limp in a fan behind her, soaking up heat in their own way, and her ears droop a little as she half-dozes in the sun.

She is, however, pointedly ignoring Uta's divide-by-slime breakdown. She's not touching that with an arrow from forty paces.

Normally, Mikage isn't the most girly of individuals. The Were Fang is far more likely to find herself rough and tumble in the wilderness than dressing in skimpy clothing. Luckily, she's managed to get into something that is a fairly standard one-piece, though the young woman is wearing what looks to be a men's short-sleeved shirt over it as she sits on the beach.

Glancing over towards Uta as the girl begins to spiral into slime-induced madness, Miki offers, "Well, you look good in it. So take that for what it is." She shrugs, then pushes herself to her feet.

"Do you... hear something?" Miki asks, even as Rama's ears perk, looking around.

Uta snaps out from her downward spiral of doom. "...Uh. Hi, Mikage. No, sorry, I was too busy-"

But there it is again. A war horn is blown for the second time.

Uta looks confused at the sound. "Is it lunchtime?"

And it's not just her -- white foam begins to rise up on the surface of the distant waves. You've seen those kaiju movies, haven't you? Yes you have. And yet, most people seem to either cry, or ignore the signal.

"Oh. Wait. Monsters!" She darts to her feet, and clears her throat. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," she announces, loud and clear. "I WOULD LIKE YOUR ATTENTION FOR A VERY SIMPLE ANNOUNCEMENT."

She inhales, deeply, and lets out a shriek that causes visible ripples in the air, and a shockwave that washes over everyone.

That should get the messasge across.

With the warning going out of impending monsters, Mikage looks around for a moment. While the young woman may be social enough, there are still situations that cause her to freeze up when it comes to random crowds. "Uh..." She starts, perhaps trying to think of the right thing to say to get people moving off the beach.

However, nothing seems to come to mind. So, after a moment of hesitation, she just swipes at her menu, drawing out her bow and sword, knowing that it won't do much good to try to get into her armor on such short notice. "I'll leave the Landers to you guys."

Because talking to people is hard.

Goldenblade blinks as she stands in the shallows, the sound of the warning horn alerting her to the white foam of distant waves rising. That certainly catches her attention. The excrement has certainly struck the rotary cooling device, it seems, and she's in the forefront directing people to clear the beach. "Back out of the water," she shouts, "everyone out of the water. Yes, you, too," she shoos a gawker. There's always one, isn't there? Another woman is trying to pack up her huge basket of laid out beach things and her kids are unpacking it as she turns to grab the next thing. "Hustle," she says sternly, and she lines the kids up, hands at their sides, allowing mom to pack up, and then they all scamper off. Another fellow's trying to pack ... "Why's you even bring -all this- to the beach? Just get going. NOW!" She sets another fellow off without his folding beach cot, 3 books, his cooler of drinks, and whatever else he'd unpacked from his duffel.

The sounding horn causes the vixen's ears to perk, from their droop. All her drowsiness vanishes in the warning cry, and she sits up to look around, one hand moving to shade her eyes. The growing wave and its dangers, however, are rather obvious - and concerning. Which has her pulling up entirely to her feet, small claws digging into her blanket as she considers how best to help.

Of course, then Uta is doing that announcement-shriek just down the way, and she shakes her head - that's only likely to panic them into action, and lead to... problems. "Corona Borealis, the crown of the north, aid me in projecting my voice forth. Grant unto me Ariadne's grace, to aid in spirit's brace." The crown of stars that appears in her head isn't too obvious, given what her hair looks like. But the other effect is even more subtle.

She raises her voice in wordless song, a work of purely vocal notes, that spreads across the beach and calms the mind and heart. A soothing melody, that once-upon-a-time was meant to ward away the Fear debuff, and now helps with the more normal expression of that emotion.

Uta's shriek certainly got everyone's attention. Admittedly, most people just got that /something/ was going on, but not what, exactly. So, thanks to Goldenblade's more organized direction and Estelle's calming song, soon the beach begins to be cleared in an orderly enough manner.

It only begins to be cleared though, and the low-level tentacled monsters that are disgorged on the beach, not to mention the clattering crustaceans, begin to gain ground before everyone can be shepherded to safety. It is lucky, then, that Mikage did not spend time trying to round up the bechgoers: her very peculiar set of skills are going to be needed here soon.

Goldenblade looms large at the shoreline as the monsters come ashore. Darkness fills in behind her, partly obscuring the last of the landers to flee. She flicks her swords, and fire rolls off them, smoking darkly as if they were oily fires rather than clean-burning magic. Unfortunately, the smoky fumes do not entirely shield the landers from view, and only a few of the monsters pause to attack her, the rest streaming on up the beach past her, going after the fleeing landers.

Standing close to the shoreline, Mikage is one of the first to see the monsters rushing in from the waves. Rama starts to pounce on them, but the Were Fang is a bit out of her depth, in more ways than one.

She steps back, trying to get a more defensive position, attempting to channel some magic, when some of the monsters barrel into her legs and down the poor girl goes into the surf.

Luckily, it isn't deep, but she ends up firmly on her butt, the water splashing against her legs, her hair drenched and dangling down into her eyes. "Alright, I get the point. Dry land it is." She turns, moving with the flow of the monsters until she at least gets back up onto the sand.

A tide of incoming squid, crustaceans, and other assorted water monsters is... not ideal. In any way. She has to cut off the calming tones eventually, as she refocuses and considers. She needs something to help distract and corral the beasts, and her usual Starry chants aren't quite up to that, here. After a moment's thought, she nods and takes a deep breath.

"Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in,
    Dim Carcosa."

The Dark-based song rolls out, with a wave of Silence and, /normally/, unnatural terror. It's a pity, then, that she forgot to dismiss the Corona Borealis upon her brow, barely turning aside any of them as the Fear and Anti-Fear effects conflict.

... there's an embarassed little whine as she realizes it, and dismisses the Corona for now.

Uta does her own dark chant, and this one does provide some sort of protection to the landers. Unfortunately, most of the attempts end up beign inssuficient, and while the monsters are eventually dispatched, shattered (oooh, seafood drop), or kicked back where they come from, a few landers will be in need of medical attention soon.

"Ok, everyone alright?" Asks Uta. "Do we need to-"

Silence.

A terrified expression turns towards the sea.

"...A Leviathan...", she whispers, in reverential terror.

The wave that appears soon after does not leave any doubt. A tsunami is coming.

"Quick, protect the beach!", she yells, and hurries to intone a spell, staff flashing colorful spheres of light in response...

Goldenblade fights off the small monsters and trash mobs with a bit of scrambling, and is much further up the beach than she'd like to be when the shadow looms up. "Leviathan?" She scrambles back to the shoreline, wading through the storm surge as she looks up, and shouts, "None shall pass!" She heard that in a movie, it sounded cool.

She flourishes her twin blades, and sets herself to block the progress of the giant monster, her blades leaping out to slash anything that comes too close, a shield of whirling blades, slashing at any tentacles that try to reach past her. Not that she can even reach far enough to entirely block it, but she can get in front of it. "Fight me!" she shouts at it.

Mikage is just making her way back up onto the sand, bare feet leaving a trail behind her when people start calling out about a Leviathan. The girl goes even more pale, if that's possible, eyes widening as she turns around. "Rama, to me!" She calls out, trying to bring the lynx back from his attacks against the monsters.

"I'll try to divert some of the water." She swipes her hand along the flat of her blade, igniting it with blue magic before slamming the weapon down into the sand. It seems to cause a wall of ice to appear in front of her, causing the waves to break against it before it has a chance to roil up onto the sands.

It took awhile, and Estelle knows she's going to be feeling aches later on, but the beach is secured. The problem now is that massive wave.... and the terrifying shadow and fins at the heart of it. She's had thoughts and musings on the like, of late, but now isn't the time for it. Thankfully it isn't attacking directly, just bringing calamity with its presence.

Mostly in the form of that giant wave.

"Oh Bull of the Heavens, I beseech thee! In this time I need I make my plea!" Her voice is firm, her hands raised skyward; even if the sun blinds them to the Stars, they're still there. Her teeth are grit in a show of determination and focus, fangs on display. "With the ancient gods' might, raise, raise the land to the heights!"

There's a tremble, the sound of a snorting bull, and then a pair of great, starry horns appears and HEAVES - and rocks burst from the ground, forming a barrier to divert and protect her chosen portion og the beach from the onrushing waves.

Uta /stares/ at Goldenblade. "Look, if you really want to be put down, Paula, I can look into cooking up some heavy-grade poison. And possibly make it painless. You don't need to do this the hard way."

Goldenblade's twirling weapons manage to protect some scattered people on that particular section of the beach.

Mikage's wall of ice is also very effective for the part of the beach she's in, which ends up merging at the edge with the rock dam brought forth by Estelle.

As for Uta, well, her song raises a wall, sure, but... a wall of sand. The water does short work of that, but fortunately, it was at the far end of the long chain of proection created by Goldenblade, Mikage and Estelle, so people get drenched, lots of almost-drowning and gasping for air, with people's HP going in the yellow at most, but everyone survives.

"Water. Ptoo. Why did it have to be water," Uta sputters, as she scrambles to get back to her feet. She squints and opens a pair of heavily reddened eyes, and once she manages to get things into focus-

"...Fish-men. Of course it's fish-men." She sighs, and twirls her staff at the incoming threat.

When the wave of water dissipates, Mikage lets out a cold breath which hangs in the air as she allows the ice to melt back into the ocean tide. Her sword is plucked up as she shakes a bit of sand from it before holding it outright once more. "I haven't seen these guys since Ezzo." She comments, "Why do they always seem to follow the Leviathans around?"

It's a little bit of a tense situation, without her armor, but luckily Mikage has her bow to keep the enemy at range. "They aren't too tough, from what I remember."

Drawing back her bow, Mikage starts to fire a volley of simple, regular arrows towards the fishmen, nearly emptying her entire quiver from where it hangs at her side.

Goldenblade peers at Uta, and says chidingly, "Aww, don't be a parrty pooper. We're strong, let's do this!" She pants hard though, her blades' flames burning brightly as she fights. The Leviathan defeated, or at least driven back, she look seaward as the waves of fish-men approach. "Okay, let's go for it," she says with a smirk, and she begins what look like an odd martial arts kata. She's clearly building up power, and she unleashes it with a spinning motion, both blades sweeping out at waist-level. The monsters that are close in are cut in half, but the real damage is a whirling ring of flames fans out from her bladetips in an expanding circle, consuming the fishmen until the circle grows large enough that the fire is too dispersed to hurt them. "I was thinking about fish sticks for lunch," she quips.

Someone (else) will deal with that stone wall later - for now, it limits the advance of their latest foe. Still, Goldenblade's comment sparks something in the vixen's head. "... Is it cannibalism if they drop fish meat, or just a representation of what they could've harvested?" She muses aloud. "I'll have to consult the stars later." She shakes it off after a moment.

The fishmen are still approaching, after all. Estelle considers the spells in her arsenal, and the situation... and gives a firm nod, taking a deep breath. "Corona Borealis, borne by the Princess of the North, your glacial winds I call forth. Bring along a blizzard's ice, paying forth the tundra's price."

A northern wind howls across the right flank, bringing with it a wash of frost and snow. Given that these are fishmen fresh from the waves, even if it is salt water, many of them are soon covered in ice - and more are wracked by how the cooling water steals extra heat from them.

"It's a valid tactic, you have to admit." The Astrologian comments towards the Ranger. "They just have to pick through the damaged shoreline it leaves behind, salvaging and stealing what they can before escaping back into the water."

"How about some sashimi?", Uta replies, while she twirls her staff to try and repel the fishmen back into the water with a powerful wind. "I haven't had some decent sashimi in ages. Or maybe- hey, no!"

Oh, great. Her staff flew off from her hands, and now she's scrambling all over the beach to recover it. More than repelling fishmen, she now has to beat them up one by one as they get in her way. And possibly pick up her staff if it's the kind of thing fishmen might salvage. Which they might or might not.

Luckily there's competente people like Mikage, Estelle and Goldenblade in this party, and by the time they're done, Uta's share of fishmen has been taken care of already.

Another large wave surges forward, left behind by the wake of the Leviathan. However, instead of bringing more fish-men, this one seems to bring something larger and more bulbous. With a splat, an absolutely huge, monstrous octopus is washed up onto the nearby rocks, it's tentacles wibbling as eyes turn towards the Adventurers.

The creature has a small, circular mouth, which it uses to send bubbles towards them, threatening to catch the unwary. Those massive tentacles snatch out, trying to wrap around the Adventurers and crush them, or otherwise knock them aside into the waves.

Uta stares at the creature, limp arm holding her staff.

"Takoyaki." She nods. "I'd like some takoyaki for lunch."

As the octopus emerges from the waves, Mikage takes a step back, setting her bow into the sling on her back. The archer is just about out of arrows, anyways. "Rama, to me!" She calls the lynx over.

"Let's see if we can't use that technique we've been working on. Huh?" She strokes a hand down the creature's back, which causes some of his fur to glow faintly before the lynx turns and runs towards the monster.

A moment later... a lynx has bit down on one of the tentacled legs of the octopus, only to be flung this way and that. "Uh... okay that isn't working. Bad idea." Mikage looks more than a little worried for her animal companion. "Rama, let go!"

And so the lynx does, being flung into the air and causing Miki to have to race across the sands, then dive in order to catch the cat before it impacts the ground. "We... really need to work on that one, don't we buddy?"

"... No, I've seen the prints and pictures. We are not doing this." The vixen declares, firmly, towards the Giant Enemy Octopus, jabbing her hand at it - one that wasn't holding that silver wand a moment ago. "You're not going to be touching any of us. Not with bubble or tentacle."

"Scutum, shield of the skies, I bear you now to protect my allies." She begins to intone, veils of silvery light forming around the others - and a couple of haphazard bystanders who are cowering against the wavebreak they made. "A bulwark of stellar might, to guard in the darkest night." It firms, wrapping around them and providing them far more protection than the armor they're not wearing right now.

... unless someone's swimsuit actually counts as proper armor, but. Then she merely starts strafing, keeping mobile, as she sends Sagitta Bolts at the massive thing, prodding it at a distance to assist her allies.

Goldenblade has just finished slashing all the fishmen into sashimi when another wave disgorges an octopus. "We're going to need to open a seaside buffet at this point," she says, wading into the fray, slashing a few tentacles to get it's attention. Once she's got its attention, and several tentacles are headed her way, she bugs out fast. So fast, flames are left in her wake, and she leaves tracks like a delorean travelling through time. She hasn't quite hit 88 mph, but she's avoiding it's attacks, and manages to stay clear, if only barely, while the other party members fight the giant monster.

Protected by Estelle's barrier, Uta musters enough confidence to launch an attack. "Mister octopus. There is only one thing I would like to tell you."

Step 1, twirl staff as quickly as possible. Sand is blown into the octopus's eyes.

Step 2, what does fire + sand result in? That's right, kids! Glass!

Step 3, glass doesn't know it's not sand and it gets blown along with it.

Step 4, Uta launches into an ascending scale, attuning with the glass, each note closer to its resonant frequency, and louder.

Step 5, inhale. "If I've learned anything in this game, is that by wearing a bikini, I AM INVINCIBLE!"

Step 6, hit final note. Shockwave. Shattered glass. Rain of shrapnel into the octopus.

Repeat this and multiple rounds of attacks from the whole team; when the HP bar of the octopus reaches zero, it explodes and scatters chunks of raw seafood all around."...well," Uta comments, twirling her staff to a halt. "Fishing is weirder than I remembered."

Goldenblade chuckles about fishing being strange. She, herself, has more than a few drops from the fish mobs and will be attempting to cook it, herself for some tome. She peers at Uta skeptically in the aftermath of the octopus fight. "So, you -do- like wearing the bikini?" she asks with a smirk, examining a takoyaki with an arched brow.

Mikage pushes herself up, sand still clinging to her bathing suit and to her knees as she sets Rama back onto his feet. "You okay?" She asks, and then ruffles the feline's ears. "We'll do better, next time." Though, she looks a bit sheepish at their performance against the octupus.

"I'm... going to go check on the Landers. It's... probably safe enough that they can return." Looking out to the water, she murmurs, "Probably just a fluke that a Leviathan got too close to shore."

With that, she swipes at the air, dismissing her weapons back into her inventory.

As the giant beast falls, Estelle lets Scutum's barrier fall away. The silver shields wisps away as little motes of light, and the woman nods to herself as she sees that everyone is okay. She also sees the 'boss drop' drop.

"... Well. A good call on your part." She notes to Uta, even as she goes to gather up her share of things, sand shifting beneath her feet. "Have you ever tried casting a divination yourself?" Her tone is light and teasing, though, as her tails flick behind her. "But I think today went well. The Stars did give me mixed omens, so hopefull that's that..."

Uta blinks at Estelle. "...uh... no, actually. I've never cast Divination. Not on purpose. It's just that I'm originally from Osaka, and, well, Takoyaki is a local specialty." Uta turns to Goldenblade, and blinks in confusion at her too. "...a bikini? I'm not wearing a bik-" She looks down. "HEY! You're right! I'm wearing a bikini! How... how did that happen?!"